


Quasar

by tielan



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Gen, Vignette, voyeur
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-03-10
Updated: 2011-03-10
Packaged: 2017-10-16 20:35:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 773
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/169075
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tielan/pseuds/tielan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She's not showy or dramatic, like a supernova or a black hole.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Quasar

**Author's Note:**

> Written back in October 2006 to a prompt - someone asked for Rodney/Teyla.

Rodney McKay doesn’t sneak around. Ever.

It’s not a personal credo or some kind of Law Of McKay. It’s just a fact. He’s got as much right to this city as anyone else, he’s not going to pretend that he’s somewhere he shouldn’t be.

Besides, it’s not as though he’s somewhere he shouldn’t be.

He’s looking for Sheppard since the other man is due for some work with the control chair and hasn’t been seen since this morning. His radio’s turned off and there’s not really any way to contact him except go looking.

So far, Rodney’s been past the mess hall, Sheppard’s room, Weir’s office, the armoury, and the rec room. He’s even checked his own lab on the off-chance that the Major’s in there fiddling with some stuff that he shouldn’t be fiddling with - some device that glimmers and glitters at his touch before fading when Rodney snatches it from him.

Bates suggested Rodney check the gym. It’s apparently where Sheppard’s taken up sparring against Teyla.

Rodney uses the word ‘apparently’ because the way Bates suggested Rodney check the gym was...well...suggestive.

But Rodney McKay never sneaks.

Not even in the hopes of getting some ‘inside information’ about whether Sheppard and the Athosian woman really _are_ doing it. Even Ford isn’t game to say one way or the other and enough people have pestered Rodney about it for him to be pretty sure that _someone’s_ opened a book on the question.

Rodney _never_ sneaks.

Okay, so maybe he walks a little more quietly than usual. He’s a scientist. They’re naturally curious. If the universe came undone at the seams, you’d find a scientist - human, alien, Ancient - holding a thread in his hand, going, “Look, it was all an experiment in the first place, you know, it had to end sooner or later.”

There’s no noise coming from the gym as he turns down the last corridor. No pants or grunts or anything that might suggest...well...suggestive things happening.

There isn’t even any conversation.

Rodney reaches the gym and pauses at the door.

Nope. No conversation.

No suggestive things, either.

And no Sheppard. At all.

Just Teyla in her top and trousers, hair tied back, arms and feet bare, moving as slowly as if the sunlight is viscous as molasses.

Rodney recognises the moves. Sort of. It’s like _tai chi_ ; all slow and steady, her arms reaching out with controlled grace, balance shifting from leg to leg.

Okay, so the collection of mostly Asian people that he used to see doing these movements in the public parks as he drove home from the labs in the foggy morning didn’t look like Teyla.

And, uh, he never got hot watching them, either.

It’s just...all that skin. And the muscles in her arms and shoulders as the light oozes across them like molasses, and the little bit of her back that’s visible between the top of her trousers and the bottom of her vest - curved and, well, muscled, and, hell, well-muscled, if it comes to that, with the little dip that limns her spine, and if she turns around and sees Rodney then she’s going to see him and he’s going to be in all kinds of trouble.

Rodney’s already in all kinds of trouble.

But he can’t bring himself to either move, or break the silence. Because, unscientific as it may be, Teyla’s...beautiful, just like this. Graceful and earthy and completely unaware that she’s got an audience whose finding it hard to breathe. She’s the brilliant, if distant, quasar - intriguing, enigmatic, hardly noticed against the more dramatic array of astronomical objects, where most of the people in Atlantis are showy stars, glittering clear in the night sky, or pulsars, given to showy flares of electromagnetic radiation out for all to see, even black holes that suck at all light and matter in their area...

Okay, he’s babbling. Even in his mind. Over a woman whose technological skills have only just reached the stage where she knows how to log in to the Atlantis network and access her email. Of course, the first time she encountered computers was only two months ago, so, all things considered, she’s not doing badly.

He’s definitely babbling.

Maybe it’s a lack of air?

Take a deep breath and walk away, Rodney. It’s obvious that Sheppard’s not here. You should stop spying on her and go somewhere else. Preferably somewhere quiet, where you and your right hand can take care of the not-so-little problem that’s tenting your trousers.

He takes a really deep, _really_ soft breath.

Teyla never stops in her movements.

Rodney sneaks away.

 


End file.
